Do lens adaptors affect IQ

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Was thinking about getting lens adaptors so I can use Nikon on canon and vice versa.

Seen some cheap on ebay like 9.99 but do they ruin IQ and do you buy a cheapo or best you can find ?

Any help appreciated
 
GTG said:
Was thinking about getting lens adaptors so I can use Nikon on canon and vice versa.

Seen some cheap on ebay like 9.99 but do they ruin IQ and do you buy a cheapo or best you can find ?

Any help appreciated
Click to expand...

All the adaptor does is space the lens away from the sensor to match the flange depth of the camera it's off. Unless you try to use FD lenses on an EF Canon body as those adaptors have a correction lens in them which will degrade quality slightly.
 
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If no lens is added in the equation,
the risk is far less.
 
If there is no glass in the adaptor it will obviously have no effect. Most are just hollow spacers to move lens away from mount. The cheap ones are fine therefore from an optical perspective however their manufacturing tolerances can be all over the place which means that some can be a little slack in terms of fitting and some can be so tight that they can be hard to remove the lens from. Or a combination of the two. If you're serious about using adapted lenses, it might be worth paying a premium. If you just want to mess around, cheap is probably fine.
 
Mind you, the amount of smog in the air in China, you might want to get hold of some fresh to put in the adaptor...

More seriously, using adaptors might introduce a little CA since the lenses were originally designed for a specific flange/"film" plane distance. In adaptors with an added element of glass, you might notice a reduction in IQ, especially from the cheaper options.
 
GTG said:
Was thinking about getting lens adaptors so I can use Nikon on canon and vice versa.

Seen some cheap on ebay like 9.99 but do they ruin IQ and do you buy a cheapo or best you can find ?

Any help appreciated
Click to expand...

Hi, you won't be able to mount Canon lenses on a Nikon DSLR without an optical adapter which will reduce image quality and add a crop factor (as they work like a mild teleconverter).

You can use Nikon glass on a Canon body with no problems, although obviously with no AF or auto aperture control. You're unlikely to see iq issues unless it's a really cheap adapter which isn't totally flat.
 
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